The odyssey:

I’ll be taking my class to visit the excavated remains of the Indus Valley site Dholavira in the Rann of Kutch on this 30th.

There are evidences of city planning found at the site, dating from 2500 B.C.
The 3rd millennium city, which was spread over an area of 250 acres, had an incredible 17 man-made, interconnected, canalized lakes for rainwater harvesting. Situated on the island formed by the rivers Mansar and Manhar, it was very systematically planned, like any Indus Valley settlement, into four. What historians call an acropolis, divided into two – the castle and the bailey, the lower town, the middle town and the burial place.

All of us are very excited. Never before have I wished for a Sunday to rush past.

sound bites

i just cannot seem to get away from a surplus of decibels. wherever i turn these days, i get my eardrums fried by blaring noise being passed off as music. even the commute to school, which used to be my substitute for zen, is now a disco on wheels. and to think we paid for having the radio installed! talk about cutting the branch one is perched on... to make matters worse, singers who should be shot for singing even in the bathroom assume it is okey to sing along if the song is being played on radio. that is the worst part. noise, i can handle. what does not bear thinking about is the accompaniment.
finally seen the last of the DTT thingie. the relief is indiscribable. words fail me. freedom! blessed freedom from the constant feeling of having an axe hanging over your neck, ready to drop any time. mala ma'm had tears in her eyes at the bye-byes. a sneaking suspicion if all the saline water was prompted whether by sadness at not seeing us anymore, or less charitable thoughts. probably not - she called moa's reflective report 'flawless' and moa 'brilliant'. moa retaliated by doing something moa does rarely- moa touched her feet, and sought her blessings.

the goddess of hair is having her revenge by making innumerble tendrils stick out of my braid. considered sticking pins into the braid, but decided against it, as it would be too weird, even for me.

on the brighter side, he-who-is-not-going-to-be-named is starting to look a little less green around the gills. less like the thwarted coming face-to-face with the thwarter. good, i guess. redemption.

I shall overcome....

Well, regular Monday blues apart, noone laughed at my hair. not many people did, anyway. atleast not to my face.
i did get some eyeballs though.
Darvish gave me a once over and went 'oh so u cut your hair? hmm....', Teesta went and announced it to the B's at loudspeaker pitch prompting an immediate stampede which ended somewhere behind me. after much deliberation, Ashna totally threw me. she went, 'ma'm, i'm now convinced u are a girl!'. well.

can't say i don't know what 'being the cycnosure of all eyes' is about. now i do. and how. not very pleasant.
that blooming idiot desai got our trip to dholavira postponed to early next week. hope he gets a flat tyre, or a pimple on his nose, or bird shit on his head.

missing Someone-i-Should-Not-Be-Missing. very, very strange. i get hungry, thirsty and sleepy, as usual, so it cannot be u-know-what. oh gawd! nooooo....

Snippety-Snip. Snip, Snip, SNAP!

She who wields the scissors, (the Rini of ‘Rini’s’?) cut through one’s tresses with a dedication suited to a better cause – like clearing up the Chambal, or stopping people wearing low-slung jeans, or Dev Anand from making any more movies, to name but a few. One resolutely closed one’s eyes tight, and prayed the hardest in one’s life ever, and swore never to sin again, if one emerged looking humanoid after the attack.
After Scissorhands and the Others were done with one, and one had managed to get one’s hair (whatever was left of it), out of one’s eyes, and managed to locate one’s specs, one chanced a look in the mirror.

One is interested to note that one’s crowning glory, which hitherto extended its vertical freefall to one’s waist, now stops shy of one’s mid shoulder. It now executes wild turns and curves, fluffs up around one’s face, curves around one’s chin, and looks rather movie-star like. One is in turn, curious, interested, enthralled, aghast and then mortally fearful.

One encounters soul-searching questions like –

What does one say in one’s defense to an irate mother and an even more irate mother-of-mother (when she comes)?
What does one do if one’s pupils mistake one for a porcupine? Or Einstein? Or My Little Pony? Or Milind Soman?
What does one do if one gets a Faceoff scare when one looks at one’s face in the mirror in sleep induced delirium?
How does one get along without one’s trusty companion of eleven years – one’s braid - quite literally hanging around one?
Does one now become a possessor of hairpins, banana clips, butterfly clips and scrunchies? One may just go bananas.
Or does one become one of ‘those types’ who leaves their hair open? (gasp! One has never done it, except while drying out one’s curls after a shampoo!) One has always found it mildly indecent. (the leaving hair open bit, not the shampoo bit)

One thinks (involuntarily), of one’s last Experiments with Hairy Truths. How one was called ‘cute’ when one wanted to be taken seriously in one’s new boy-cut in grade 4, and how one had fled home those long years ago, and had never, ever cut one’s hair again. Ever.
One resolves to go home and plait whatever is left of one’s keratiny dead-cells. One loves one’s keratiny dead-cells.
One dreads Monday with a new and powerful dread - the dread of the Newly Hair-Styled. Indescribable.



Shraddha, the things I do for you…..You better name your first child after me. Even if it is a boy. Call him Elizabethan or something.

The Despicable Delights of Dandiya;

One gets to see little guys’ feet getting entangled in their own dhotis, and tipping over onto their faces all over the place. Most entertaining. One then remembers that one is a teacher, by virtue of which, one cannot laugh at one’s pupils. One finds it quite impossible to stop laughing, so one simply laughs on behind cover of one’s handkerchief, and thusly, spares feelings all around and avoids a scandal.

One also gets pushed, shoved and pulled from all angles by one’s devout pupils who want to witness the sweet sight of one making a perfect ass of oneself on the dance floor. One acts with lightning wit and acuity, and feigns swooning spells by the simple expedient of rolling one’s eyes most effectively, and collapses onto the mattress in a heap, thusly solving the problem, and scaring off said pupils.

One struggles for a glimpse of one’s face in the mirror in that most hallowed of meeting places – the washroom, and learns an important life lesson in the process – thou shalt use thy elbow as a battering ram. The needs justify the end.

One witnesses colleagues dressed up to give a complex to a Christmas tree, and despairs over one’s plane janeness.

i think i just murdered my blog.
nowadays all i do is fret and fume at the powers that be, and agonize over my hair.
even the usually pleasantly productive passtime of irritating my bro to fits dosent seem to do the trick. makes one wonder if menopause strikes one in the early twenties.

The Ten Commandments.

thy shalt not give in. conquer, cajole, career around rejection. break down barriers. make the stone-hearted sing.

thou shalt say i art the light of thy life. thy joy, thy pride. thy weakness, thy strength. thou shalt keep saying it again, and again, and again.

thou shalt love my burnt toast and my bitter coffee. thou shalt not call my rasam bland.

thou shat walk with me in the rain, splash through puddles, ruminate, star-gaze, doodle, smile in the darkness.

thou shalt not make me wait. waiting is an endless pain, an unfinished book, a half-smile.

thou shalt lift me up and carry me about. thy arms wilt be mine cage, locomotion, refuge, sanctuary.

thou shalt sing me racuous melodies. read me gibran, the songs of solomon. croon careless whisper, every move you make.

thou shalt not find govinda movies funny. thou shalt love gulmohars, golden showers, the smell of old books.

thou shalt wander the world with me. inhabit the realm of mists and high mountains, never ending plains, old bookshops, streetside musicians, grassy knolls, hillsides.

more than anything, thou shalt be a goof. let thy silliness wash away my morose broodings. be the silver lining.

lost my fav yellow hanky!